Tennessee record and World Record
So we know our buddy Jam Ferguson's fish was a Tennessee State Record Black Crappie, but I remember someone questioning whether it was a World Record Black Crappie or not. Some articles said world record, others said state record, and I just wanted to know for sure. Seems like the State Record has been confirmed, and the Word record certification process is still underway. Very cool.
Here's a few lines from a story out of the Tennessee Wildlife Magazine.:
"The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency said the results from a genetic analysis verified the record. An application for a world record status will have to be submitted to the International Game Fish Association.
"TWRA received verification from Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that Mr. Ferguson’s fish is a pure strain black crappie without any hybrid genes and is being certified as the new state record," TWRA wrote in a release.
The crappie Jam reeled in ended up outweighing Tennessee’s current state record of 4 pounds, 4 ounces. That fish was reeled in by Clyde Freeman in Brown’s Creek Lake, 42 miles east of Jackson, Tennessee in 1985. Ferguson’s crappie ended up weighing in at around 5 pounds and 7.68 ounces with the help of one wildlife officer who found him a proper scale to weigh the fish on.
The fish even busted the scale for the world record black crappie weighing in at an even 5 pounds, caught from a private lake in Missouri in 2006, according to the International Game Fish Association."
Original article can be found here: It's official: Loudon Co. fisherman reels in state, world record-breaking fish | wbir.com